One of the things that we had to do after moving to suburbia was getting a second car. If one car in Brooklyn was more than enough, life out here is impossible without several. We decided to keep our Mercedes for the time being as it is almost paid out as a family car and lease a second fancy car for my work commute and general driving.

We’ve ended up doing something that we couldn’t really do before — get a coupe — 2 door sports car. My two primary choices were BMW 4 Series and Mercedes-Benz C-class. The problem with C-class ended up it being redesigned and still unreleased and we couldn’t really wait.

I kept picking Snapper Rocks Blue Metallic color for BMW that I kept building out it being my favorite color. But it costing extra money I was ready to settle for a simple black. Two colors that I really didn’t want was white and silver. Everything else I was OK with.

Another new thing was that we finally could afford to lease the car as the yearly mileage would significantly go down. It made sense to try to find 2018 model. A new 2019 was already out, but there were absolutely no changes made to the car. And since BMW wanted to get rid of 2018 models they had nice incentives going.

When I came to the dealership the search revealed that there were only four 2018 cars left in the North East.

Two of them were white. No go. One was dark gray, but sadly it lacked some options that I really wanted — like Apple CarPlay and premium sound system. And than the dealer says — the last one is sadly very bright blue. I made a sad face and said that I guess I’ll have to settle down for that, while I was quietly jumping excitedly inside.

The car ended up being equipped with BMW M package, which was also somewhat exciting. It had M suspension, M wheels, M steering wheel and M body parts. It had Heads-Up display and parking assistant which I really didn’t care for and it was lacking a digital cluster which I somewhat wanted, but these weren’t deal breakers.

It had LED headlight option which was a must. It has all-wheel-drive, which is another must in Ridgefield especially. And it has a full leather interior among other things.

Before going further I have to admit that I had to settle down for a 4 cylinder turbo engine, instead of a 6 cylinder one. It was just too much money having spent so much on everything else related to the house. But to my surprise this is probably one of the most fun cars to drive that I had. I guess little weight of the car combined with a high tech 4 cylinder turbo results in a very exciting package — surprising indeed.

I think I got a decent deal on the car as well. I pushed it to 15% off MSRP which I’m quite happy about.

Also since we re-registered our Mercedes to Connecticut our combined insurance for both cars ended up being the same as our Mercedes was in Brooklyn. It’s not much of a surprise that it came out lower, knowing that Brooklyn insurance is one of the highest in the country. I just didn’t expect it not to go up at all.

We had to wait for about a week for the car to get shipped up from Virginia, but I love it. I think it’s the most gorgeous car I have ever owned. And I got SO many compliments on the color already. Now I’m just waiting for iOS 12 the most exciting feature of which was Apple allowing third party maps such as Waze to be available on CarPlay.

P.S. I had the car debaged by the dealer as I really hate how xDrive (AWD) logo looks. Since that was getting removed I got the rest of the lettering also removed. Makes for a nice clean look.

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We did not deviate from the regular routine this year and celebrated New Year with family at Daniel’s parents place. There were four of us, Danya’s parents and Lina.

I did not cook anything for the holiday table this year. First of all, after a week of stomach virus traveling from one family member to another, I felt exhausted. Secondly, I was worried that if I cook something, I might inadvertently make my in-laws sick. I was the only one from the four of us who did not throw up by the way, but I’m pretty sure that I had the virus in some milder form.

Anyhow, back to the pleasant stuff. We gathered close to 7 o’clock. Took family photos as usual. Had a nice dinner, with most of the holiday favorites including olivie, holodets, funchoza, “french” meat, fried eggplants, roasted potatoes. Drank some champagne, remembered the good things about 2017.

We let the children open some of their presents ahead of time, because it was really hard for them to wait for midnight. On the topic of gifts. They were plenty!

Arosha got a Parrot minidrone, an Instax instant pictures camera with additional film and a photo album, toys, jigsaw puzzles, art supplies, bubble bath, candies and clothes. Anюta got toys, clothes, candies and art supplies, which included pink sparkly glue, beads, markers, paint sets, coloring pad, stamps. One of the things that she asked for was the whole set of pink markers. Amazingly, you can order a pack of such things on Amazon. Too bad that they were all the same shade, but she liked them nonetheless.

Danya got clothes, socks, a set of Erdinger beer glasses and Allen Edmonds boots and gloves, both of which we returned since they did not fit all that well. I got clothes, a new electric kettle by Cuisinart and a meat grinder, which I thought about getting for the longest time.

Everyone was happy with their gifts, although I was a little disappointed that Danya’s boots did not fit well. Oh, and we did order the Instagram calendars as we do each year for both us and parents.

We went home at around 1:30. Anюta has fallen asleep at around 11:30 and did not wake up to greet the New Year and to participate in gift giving. We tried to wake her up, but she was too tired and did not want to get up. Arosha, on the other hand, had no problems staying awake so late this year. He was very excited about the gifts and volunteered to be a “New Year Elf”, a helper of “Father Frost”. In his enthusiasm he was a bit of a hasty helper, so we had to ask him a few times to slow down a bit, so that everybody can see what the others are getting.

Also, I am not sure if Arosha believes in Santa Claus or Father Frost anymore. He figured out the Tooth Fairy business recently. I guess, I could have kept the illusion longer, but I just did not have the heart to do it. He kept asking me if I was his tooth fairy for over a year already, and I kept saying that even if I am, I will not tell him because tooth faeries are secretive.

And then after his most recent tooth loss he said that if I am the tooth fairy that he’ll exchange the tooth for the money since he knows that I will save his baby teeth, but if it is someone else, then he would prefer to keep his tooth and not get the money. So after he was agonizing about the best course of action for a while, I gave in and told him the truth. I think he was mostly happy with this information, which confirmed his suspicions.

As for Father Frost, one of his theories is that it is a dressed up building’s superintendent. I guess, he is close enough. He also said that an elderly man flying all over sky with the help of his deer makes no sense whatsoever and is quite ridiculous.

Unfortunately, I started to develop a bad headache after midnight and it was intensifying rapidly. I ended up suffering the whole next day as well, but luckily I could just rest. We spent half of January 1st at home, and the other half at Daniel’s parents.

By they way, credit for Arosha’s main gift ideas belongs totally and completely to Daniel. Arosha got very excited about both drone and the camera, and he still uses both, a month later.